FBI Appears to Foil Own Terror Plot

WASHINGTON, DC — Politico.com is reporting that the Capitol Police arrested a man near the Capitol Building Friday, on what he believed was a suicide mission.

“A Moroccan man suspected of plotting a suicide attack at the Capitol was arrested Friday near the building, according to the U.S. Capitol Police and media reports.”

Details are sketchy at this point, but statements by the government’s spokeswoman make it appear as though this may be yet another case in which the FBI has located a susceptible, troubled individual, spent months recruiting him, provided him with resources, weapons, and know-how, and then arrested him at the last second–claiming it “thwarted” a terrorist threat of its own creation.

“This arrest was the culmination of a lengthy and extensive operation during which the individual was closely and carefully monitored,” spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider said in a statement. “The U.S. Capitol Police was intimately involved in the investigation for the duration of the operation. At no time was the public or Congressional community in any danger.”

The FBI calls these entrapment scenarios “stings,” and although details on this incident are still unclear, the FBI has done this very thing several times before. Fox News reports that reported that the man was carrying a vest containing what he believed were explosives but were actually inert. How did he get fake explosives? Who gave them to him and taught him how to use them? How did the FBI “discover” this plot? How did the Capitol Police know that the public was never in any danger? The simplest explanation is that this suicide attack was probably the FBI’s own creation, and it recruited a susceptible, angry person in order to arrest him.

The FBI will no doubt claim credit for its “intensive investigation,” but the question remains, does it deserve credit for creating a threat and then stopping it? It’s not an “investigation” if the plot they were investigating was their own. These sting operations are of dubious value to national security, but they are huge propaganda coups for the Bureau. I will post further updates here, Facebook, and Twitter, as they become available.